crochet designs inspired by the colours, country side, wild life and way of life of Australia. My goal is to liven up crochet, make it fun and relevant to today and include environmental message. Patterns can be used for personal use, creating gifts and limited charity fundraising. You can not sell or copy my patterns, nor are you licensed to sell finished items made from my patterns. I want my projects to cheer your day - cockatoo, kangaroo , didgeridoo, hooroo! (c) crochetroo

Monday, September 08, 2008

I am one of those people who loves yarn, in all colours, fibres and textures. And while I appreciate quality yarn, I have never been a yarn snob.

I picked this ball of yarn up when I was last in Melbourne. It is called pom pom and marketed by Lincraft. Might sound a bit silly going all the way to Melbourne for a ball of yarn, however we don't have a Lincraft here on the Gold Coast, and the one in Melbourne is always so well stocked. From memory it was around the 3 - 4 dollar a ball mark.

So what do you do with one ball of quite chunky yarn and a plastic hook?

I say plastic as I then had to fly back from Melbourne and Qantas is ok with large plastic crochet hooks. As an aside, I find it interesting that hooks are on the flying no no list... I mean can you imagine someone saying to the pilot "If you don't do as I say I am going to double crochet you into that pilots chair!' ( or as my husband once said "make you wear this lime green fugly on your head")

I have noticed that neck warmers are all the rage now, so you can legitimately make a short scarf out of 1 ball of yarn, and call it a "neck warmer". This is being "trendy", and not seen as "stingy" ( ie I was too stingy to buy 2 balls of yarn in case it was a mongrel to work with, so tuff luck I have only made half a scarf). So I called this my Stingy Neck Warmer for a bit of a laugh!

So here is my very simple pattern, as this stuff is a bit of a pain to work with as it is impossible to unravel. The balls of fluff hide any errors hence this is a good pattern for newbies and actually looks rather funky.

Instructions for Stingy Neck Warmer

Hook Size: big to extra big, I used a 9mm plastic hook.

Tension: who cares?

Yarn: 1 ball of novelty yarn.

This pattern is written in Australian terms and American terms are shown second like this

Row 1: Loosely make 15ch, 1dc or 1sc into 6th from hook then (miss 2ch, 1dc or 1sc) across, (you should have 4 loops) turn and work back

Row 2: (3ch 1dc or 1sc into 3ch loop of previous row) across, turn = 7 loops. Make sure you work into the first loop and count the loops in each row

Row 3: until infinity……repeat row 2 until you run out of yarn.

To adjust width alter start chain = multiple of 3 plus 1

Now tip your head onto the side and it should look like the sample below:

"mmm", she is thinking, "I am so glad my boyfriends mother made me this comfy neck warmer. It is a good thing she's so stingy or I could have ended up with one of those unfashionable long scarfs!!"

Because of the loops you can thread the end through one of the holes and voila, you have a very fashionable and snugly neck warmer!

OK now you have the hang of it and have saved up to buy two balls of yarn you can make a longer scarf. I call this stuff fluffy yarn, however this works with that eyelash stuff or any chunky yarn. Have fun experimenting!

Here is the pattern for a 2 ball version, in a lighter fluffy yarn. These are nice and stretchy. Just make sure you count the loops in each row so your sides are parallel. I stick my finger through each hole as it can be hard yakka trying to count stitches.

Don't the girls below look fabulous in their short shorts, single tops and fluffy scarfs? They are friends of one of my sons and I made the scarves for them to take on the school skiing trip to Perisher. Any one who is to be seen in Perisher needs a long scarf! This is not the place for stingy people.Instructions Fluffy Scarf

2 balls of fluffy stuff, also works well for chunky stuff

7mm hook

This pattern is written in Australian terms and American terms are shown second like this

Row 1: Loosely make 25ch, 1dc or 1sc into 6th from hook then (miss 2ch, 1dc or 1sc) across, (you should have 7 loops) turn and work back

Row 2: (3ch, 1dc or 1sc into 3ch loop of previous row) across, turn = 7 loops. Make sure you work into the first loop and count the loops in each row

Row 3 until infinity……repeat row 2 until you run out of yarn.

To adjust width alter start chain = multiple of 3 plus 1

OK now tilt your head onto the side again (as I can't seem to rotate the photo) and this is what it should look like:

The one ball variety do make great gifts and charity fund raisers. I hook it through the holes so you slip it easily over the head.

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About Me

I have been crocheting all my life, and my kids find this an amusing if not nerdy hobby. I am now at the stage of life where I can do as I please. My work is inspired by my homeland Australia. Both the wildlife and way of life give me inspiration. I like to have an environmental message in my work. I am a greeny and a member of Greenpeace. Hence I loathe bunnies. I reckon there are way too many crochet bunnies in the world without me creating more.
check out my etsy store for crochet critters and other stuff from down under:
http://crochetroo.etsy.com/